Leonardo Balada

After graduating in Barcelona, he moved to New York where he concluded his studies at the Juilliard School. He is University Professor of Composition at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh since 1970. He is credited with pioneering a blending of ethnic music with avant-garde techniques. That was the style he used in Symphony in Black-Homage to Martin L. King (1968), Homage to Casals and Homage to Sarasate (1975). His compositions include the operas Zapata and Cristóbal Colón and other works like Guernica, María Sabina, Torquemada, Música para oboé y orquesta, or the cantata No-res, which are regularly performed by the leading orchestras around Europe and the USA.